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Because it's not about Right or Left, it's about Right and Wrong!Fri, 18 Aug 2017 00:17:50 +0000http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2enFighting for Free Speech For and Against Nazis, Trump, and Israel: 'BradCast' 8/17/2017http://bradblog.com/?p=12260
http://bradblog.com/?p=12260#commentsFri, 18 Aug 2017 00:10:42 +0000Brad FriedmanFox 'News'BRAD BLOG Media AppearanceWar On TerrorVirginiaRights And FreedomsNorth KoreaUnited NationsMainstream Media FailureAccountabilityDept. of JusticeU.S. SenateDemocratsRepublicansChuck SchumerIsraelKPFKDonald TrumpTed CruzBradCastReligionRaceSteve BannonSpainhttp://bradblog.com/?p=12260On today's BradCast: Constitutional free political speech matters, especially speech we may disagree with. There's seems to be a lot of confusion about that of late. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But first today, after breaking news on Thursday's deadly terror attack in Barcelona, new evidence, via Steve Bannon of all people, that at least some inside the White House appear to understand that "there's no military solution" for North Korea, despite President Trump's dangerous militaristic posturing over the past two weeks.

Then, we move on to a number of free speech issues regarding last weekend's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville and those protesting against them, a wildly intrusive warrant from the Department of Justice demanding personal information on some 1.3 million Americans who visited an anti-Trump website, and a bill working its way through Congress that would seem to call for a wildly unconstitutional ban on the free speech of those wishing to peacefully protest the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

The bill would make it a felony --- assessing harsh financial penalties and even jail time --- for Americans who boycott Israeli-owned business and companies which do business with them. "What's really scary about it is that it tells you --- no matter what your views are on Israel-Palestine, whether you support a two-state solution or a one-state solution --- as long as you don't do business with Israel, we're going to criminalize you," Raihan explains. "There are tons of people who go through their lives and, for whatever reason, don't happen to buy products made in Israel, and there's no problem with that. But the second that you say 'I'm doing this because I believe in XYZ, I believe in Palestinian human rights', that becomes a problem. Which is completely criminalizing people for their political action, and their commitment to living their values out in their lives."

The legislation, on its face, appears to be in direct contrast with a unanimous 1982 U.S. Supreme Court opinion, finding that penalties assessed against Mississippi civil rights advocates in response to a 1960's civil rights era boycott of white-owned businesses, was an unconstitutional violation of political free speech rights. Last month, the ACLU blasted the bill in a letter to lawmakers, leading one Democrat, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, to remove her co-sponsorship. We discuss all of that, as well as the origins and controversies behind the new proposal.

Finally today, yet another Fox "News" personality breaks down in tears on air in response to the controversies and related racial issues following Charlottesville and Trump's disturbing response to it. Is the original fake news channel finally being to crack under the stress of the wildly unfit and arguably racist President that they created?...

Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump revokes Obama's executive order protecting the nation's infrastructure from floods; July 2017 was the hottest July on record, and the hottest month ever; Monday's total solar eclipse to have big impact on solar energy generation; PLUS: National monuments on the chopping block in unprecedented monument review... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

The Trump administration has dismantled aspects of Obama’s legacy, big and small — including the Capital Bikeshare station that was installed on the White House grounds at the request of the Obama administration. Unlike every other Bikeshare station in the region, this one was not accessible to the public and could only be used by commuters who had access to White House grounds. The Obama administration requested the station in 2010.

The Obama administration got the "secret" dock installed in 2010 for people who worked inside...Before former President Barack Obama left office in January, his Transportation Department signed off on new regulations redefining traffic as people who move on roads, rather than strictly vehicles—a change considered a coup for cyclists and pedestrians. President Trump’s relationship with the two-wheeled set is not so rosy.

The revoked standard required public infrastructure such as subsidized housing to be built 2 feet above the 100-year flood standard, while critical infrastructure like hospitals and fire departments would need to rise by 3 feet. Many in the environmental community already considered the standard too weak, as it's based on floodplain maps that they say do not accurately account for future climate change. Industry groups like the National Association of Home Builders opposed the Obama standard, arguing that it would impose construction costs and deter development.

Trump sought to protect his golf course from rising seas, but is undoing protections for vulnerable Americans and taxpayer-funded projects...As the Washington Post noted in 2015, Obama’s order was the first time the federal government took sea level rise projections into account, instead of relying only on historical data. It was also the rare climate change.

The fight to protect public lands has galvanized the outdoor industry, which employs 7.6 million Americans and stirs $887 billion in annual spending, generating $125 billion in local, state and federal taxes.

A judge has blocked a proposed 176 million-ton expansion of an underground coal mine in central Montana because federal officials did not consider its climate change impacts. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said that officials inflated the economic benefits of the 11-square mile expansion of Signal Peak Energy's Bull Mountain coal mine while ignoring its environmental impacts.

Total Eclipse: Potential "carmaggedon" and a big hit on solar energy supplies:

The solar eclipse will significantly diminish that capacity for a couple of hours on August 21, especially in California and North Carolina. “Our solar plants are going to lose over half of their ability to generate electricity during the two to two and a half hours that the eclipse will be impacting our area,” says Steven Greenlee, spokesperson for the California Independent System Operator, or CAISO, one of the largest independent grid operators in the world.

Get ready for the Eclipse Across America that occurs on August 21, 2017. All across the USA, everyone can observe a partial to total eclipse of the sun. To prepare for this rare sight, an Eclipse Kit has been developed with activities suitable for families, community outreach and summer camp programs.

The visually arresting sight will last up to a couple of minutes depending on the location. But that's still enough time to throw off unsuspecting drivers, as well as to prompt major traffic congestion in states with prime viewing spots. This will be the first time in 99 years that the path of a total solar eclipse moves across the entire U.S. from coast to coast... [T]ransportation as we know it was completely different the last time a solar eclipse spanned the U.S. in 1918. ."For example, back then, there were only 6.16 million cars on the road," Hecox said. "Today, there are over 263 million. The risk of distraction is ever present on modern roads, and the eclipse could be the biggest driver distraction of the last century."

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

A federal appeals court has let ExxonMobil largely off the hook for a 2013 pipeline spill that deluged a neighborhood in Mayflower, Arkansas, with more than 200,000 gallons of heavy tar sands crude oil, sickening residents and forcing them from their homes.

Miami is among the U.S. cities most vulnerable to rising seas due to climate change, and city officials estimate that they may have to spend at least $900 million in the coming decades to upgrade the city’s flood prevention and drainage systems to keep the Atlantic Ocean at bay.

At a federal hearing Tuesday to decide whether domestic makers of solar panels need tariff protection from imports, members of the U.S. International Trade Commission focused much of their questioning on why these companies had failed as the overall solar market was booming."

For the first time in centuries, the American shad entered the Musconetcong River during its spring spawning migration upriver this year. The Musky, as it’s known to locals, is a tributary of the Delaware in Northwestern New Jersey. The Hughesville Dam, standing 18 feet tall and 150 feet wide, had blocked its way.

Washington State officials have privately complained about a lack of information — vital for an oil spill response — on the ingredients of the diluent used to help Alberta bitumen flow through Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain oil pipeline.

As the United States reverses its climate policies, the world's top greenhouse gas emitter is in the midst of setting up a national carbon-trading system...The emissions market will cover roughly a quarter of the country's industrial CO2.

One of the coldest places on Earth is so hot it's melting. Glaciers, sea ice and a massive ice sheet in the Arctic are thawing from toasty air above and warm water below. The northern polar region is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet and that's setting off alarm bells..."The melting of the Arctic will come to haunt us all," said German climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf.

Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.

Following Donald Trump's insane press conference at Trump Tower on Tuesday, during which he vociferously equated neo-Nazis and White Supremacists with those who oppose them --- just days after the murder of a counter-protester by an apparent White nationalist in Charlottesville --- even some Republicans are finally condemning him. Sort of. But not nearly enough.

At the same time, Confederate monuments are being removed around the country and business leaders who claim to be furious have withdrawn from Trump's two different business councils, which he has now been forced to shut down. Nonetheless, despite their half-hearted protestations, Republicans continue to intentionally suppress minority voting in state after state. Another Federal Court determined as much this week in Texas, finding --- for the 11th time in recent years --- that state Republicans intentionally suppressed minority voters there.

Another such state is Vice President Mike Pence's Indiana, where a new analysis from the Indy Star finds that early voting sites were shuttered in Democratic counties and expanded in Republican counties after Obama won the state in 2008, and as Pence served as Governor. The strategy worked. Republican turnout increased in counties where voting rights were expanded and Democratic votes decreased in the state's largest and most Democratic leaning counties, where voting sites were shuttered. Now Pence heads up Trump's so-called "Election Integrity" Commission.

Long-time BRAD BLOG legal analystERNEST A. CANNING joins us to detail his new article on the two federal lawsuits, alleging violations of both the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution, that have now been filed in the Hoosier State.

Then, along with a clip of a GOP strategist breaking down into tears on Fox "News" in the wake of Trump's response to Charlottesville, callers --- including my own father! --- ring in on all of the above. Is Trump "a Nazi" himself? Will this moment ultimately make any difference moving forward? And, can the GOP officials rebuking Trump be taken seriously, given that they are still suppressing the votes of African-Americans and Latinos all across the nation at the very same time?...

Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...
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While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

The lawsuits entail two sets of laws. One of the lawsuits seeks to block a law that specifically targets Lake County --- and only Lake County --- for precinct consolidation and/or elimination. Lake County sports the state's second largest African-American population and its largest Hispanic population. The other lawsuit challenges a voter suppression scheme that significantly reduces early absentee voting sites for a significant number of African-American (Democratic) voters in Marion County, even while mostly white (Republican) voters in neighboring counties benefit from a significant expansion in the number of available early absentee voting sites.

Both sets of laws, as observed by Slate's Mark Joseph Stern, are part of the still-ongoing Republican response to the 2008 Presidential Election in which Barack Obama narrowly defeated John McCain 49.85% to 48.82% in long-Republican Indiana. That narrow victory was secured, in part, because, in the two populous counties that are the subject of these lawsuits, Lake and Marion, Obama received 66.7% and 63.8% of the vote totals, respectively.

That was a bridge too far for many Republican officials in the Hoosier State...

Early voting sites

Marion County, which includes the city of Indianapolis, has the highest percentage (28%) of African-Americans in Indiana. The Common Cause lawsuit seeks to enjoin the Indiana GOP's effort to significantly suppress the early absentee African-American Democratic vote in Marion County. Under a Marion County Board of Elections (MCEB) 2008 rule, registered voters in Marion County could cast early absentee ballots at one of three polling stations --- a central location and two satellite locations.

Republicans on the MCEB eliminated the two satellite locations in 2010 and have repeatedly blocked their reinstatement. This meant that in 2016, there was but a single absentee early voting station for Marion County's nearly 700,000 registered voters. Just one early voting station per 699,709 registered voters in Marion County sharply contrasts with contiguous, and mostly White, Republican counties, who's election boards unanimously expanded the numbers of their early voting sites in 2016.

For example, in solidly Republican Johnson County (107,546 registered voters), election officials approved five (5) early voting sites, in addition to a site inside the office of the Circuit Court Clerk. Thus, during the 2016 election, Johnson County had one early voting site for every 17,924 registered voters --- as compared to just one for 699,709 voters in Marion County.

The result, as revealed by Fatima Hussein of IndyStar last week, was a 63% increase in White/Republican Hamilton County "in absentee voting from 2008 to 2016, while Marion County saw a 26% decline." Similar increases in early voting occurred in "Central Indiana Republican strongholds, including Boone, Johnson and Hendricks counties."

Where the elimination of two of the three early voting sites served to suppress Democratic Marion County turnout in the 2012 and 2016 elections, "voter turnout in each county contiguous to Marion County where satellite sites have been approved has steadily increased," according to the Common Cause complaint.

The issue stems also from a 2013 law that applied different rules to "counties with populations over 325,000", requiring that the adoption of additional early absentee voting sites receive unanimous approval by the county election board. That means that the single Republican on Marion's election commission has been able to block any expansion for its 700,000 voters. Only two of the state's 92 counties, Marion and Lake, had poulations larger than 325,000 when the state legislature adopted the bill in 2013.

In arguing that this disparate availability of early absentee voting in different Indiana counties violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Common Cause complaint alleges that Indiana has maintained "an unequal system of early voting that unnecessarily and disproportionately burdens Marion County voters"...

The only location authorized for early voting: the office of the Marion County Circuit Court Clerk, is located in the heart of downtown Indianapolis...with little to no free parking. For some voters in the outlying townships, a trip downtown can be more than a 20-mile round trip and takes well over an hour by private vehicle, and two or more hours by public transportation.

Many Marion County voters, and especially those of color, also experience disadvantages in education, income, employment, and access to transportation, which when compounded by complications caused by childcare responsibilities and/or class schedules, makes it extremely difficult if not impossible for them to vote on Election Day. These disadvantages interact with other pre-existing election laws, including the earliest Election Day closing time in the nation (6:00 p.m.), the absence of an Indiana statute requiring employers to give employees time off to vote, and the absence of no-fault, mail-in absentee voting for able-bodied voters under the age of 65, to further exacerbate the burdens on Marion County voters by the arbitrary limitation of early in-person absentee voting to a single location.

Common Cause additionally alleges that this disparate system violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment and the Indiana Constitution, which guarantees that all elections be "free and equal."

The lawsuit seeks to establish at least two additional satellite early absentee voting locations for the 2018 election via an injunction that would prevent the MCEB from continuing to obstruct the creation of those satellite voting locations.

Consolidation/reduction of precincts

The NAACP lawsuit challenges a law, SB 220 (The Lake County Precinct Consolidation Law or LCPCL) , passed by the Republican super-majority in the state's General Assembly earlier this year. The law mandates the consolidation of "small precincts" (600 "active" voters or less). Curiously, this "consolidation" was purportedly passed as a cost savings measure, despite the fact that the "consolidation" had not been sought by Lake County. (The complaint alleges that the General Assembly usurped Lake County's right to determine what cost measures are appropriate.)

There are a total of 92 Indiana counties, including 24 other counties with "small precincts", yet the General Assembly arbitrarily singled out Lake County --- and only Lake County --- for precinct consolidation or elimination, according to the NAACP complaint.

Because of the definition of "small precinct," even within Lake County, the law has a disparate impact upon minority-majority cities --- Gary, East Chicago and Hammond --- which face consolidation or elimination of 83%, 70% and 81% of their existing precincts, respectively. This contrasts sharply with the 14 majority-White cities, towns, and unincorporated communities where only 41% of their existing precincts are at risk of consolidation or elimination of their existing precincts. "None of the approximately 1,345 precincts located in Indiana counties other than Lake County that contain under 600 active voters are at risk of consolidation or elimination," according to the NAACP complaint.

The NAACP complaint alleges disparate burdens that are quite similar to those in the Common Cause case.

Given that Lake County lacks a meaningful, reliable public transportation system, voters who live in poverty and do not have access to a car --- in many cases as a direct result of Indiana's history of discrimination --- will suffer particularly severe burdens in attempting to exercise their right to vote if their precinct is eliminated and their polling place is changed. Low-income voters who typically have little flexibility in their work day and must vote during a narrow window before or after work will similarly suffer severe burdens.

The NAACP complaint goes on to allege that the LCPCL will increase costs, and that, by compressing large number of voters into fewer voting sites, the consolidation will enhance the prospect for long lines on Election Day.

These allegations are consistent with the conclusions set forth in a recent University of Florida research paper, prepared by three political science professors, who studied the impact of precinct consolidation/elimination in Manatee County, Florida.

Alterations of Election Day polling stations do not appear to be random --- falling disproportionately on racial and ethnic minorities as well as younger voters and those registered to vote with the Democratic Party...Not only can seemingly benign changes to precinct boundaries and polling place locations marginalize voters who habitually depend on traditional Election Day voting, it can affect their propensity to vote at all in a subsequent election. As with legislative gerrymandering, the redrawing of precincts can be done with the aim of advantaging or disadvantaging the turnout of certain populations.

The NAACP complaint goes on to note that the Lake County law fails to include funds for educating voters about the changes: "It is highly likely that a significant number of voters will be unaware that their precincts or polling locations have changed until they attempt to vote in 2018." Voters could "be turned away, or be forced to cast a provisional ballot that will not be counted because Indiana law mandates the rejection of any ballot cast by a voter in a precinct other than the one he or she is assigned."

The NAACP complaint alleges that the LCPCL violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, along with the 1st, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; that the law is arbitrary and fails to serve a valid governmental interest; that emergency and permanent injunctions should issue to prevent the State of Indiana from enforcing the law.

The legal arguments presented in both cases appear sound, but the cases will have to move swiftly if minority voting rights are to be protected as we approach the 2018 midterm election.

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Ernest A. Canning is a retired attorney, author, Vietnam Veteran (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968) and a Senior Advisor to Veterans For Bernie. He has been a member of the California state bar since 1977. In addition to a juris doctor, he has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science. Follow him on twitter: @cann4ing]]>http://bradblog.com/?feed=rss2&p=12252Pathway to Peace with North Korea? Also: New CBO Health Care Report Undercuts Trump Threat: 'BradCast' 8/15/2017http://bradblog.com/?p=12257
http://bradblog.com/?p=12257#commentsWed, 16 Aug 2017 01:14:35 +0000Brad FriedmanBRAD BLOG Media AppearanceWar On TerrorVirginiaNorth KoreaJournalist IntimidationAccountabilityFBIBarack ObamaHealth CareKPFKDonald TrumpDHSOklahomaBradCastJames MattisCBOSouth KoreaJohn KellySebastian Gorkahttp://bradblog.com/?p=12257On today's BradCast: Digging deeper and/or trying to catch up with the runaway news on North Korea, Charlottesville and Trump's continuing threats to radically undermine the Affordable Care Act. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Among the (many) stories covered on today's show:

A faint glimmer of hope for peace --- or at least diplomacy --- breaks out in the U.S./North Korea nuclear standoff, as all sides (including South Korea) suggest options that could help to avert disaster;

Trump digs himself deeper by using a somewhat insane press conference on Tuesday at Trump Tower to equate the "alt-left" (his words) with White Nationalists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville over the weekend, even while claiming (over and over again) that his previously criticized remarks were only due to the fact that he insists on getting his facts straight before speaking. "Unlike you," he said to the assembled press, over and over, without irony, "before I make a statement, I like to know the facts." (Insert your own joke here);

New reporting reveals an FBI and DHS intelligence report warned the Trump Administration in May about the threat of violent Rightwing domestic terrorism far out-pacing that of Islamic (or any other form of) terrorism in the U.S., at the same time the Administration was deciding to block a previously announced grant to a group that helps people escape the grip of White Nationalist groups. (Following up our conversation on yesterday's show with former neo-Nazi Tony McAleer of Life After Hate, the group whose grant was withdrawn);

More CEO's remove themselves and their companies from the President's Manufacturing Council in protest of his response to the tragic violence in Charlottesville over the weekend. (By the end of the show today, the number went from four to six);

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office issues a report [PDF] today finding that Trump's threats of withholding funding to insurance companies meant to cover costs for low-income consumers under the Affordable Care Act ('ObamaCare'), could spike all individual premium rates by 20 percent in 2018, force companies to stop selling insurance at all in certain regions, and raise the federal deficit by nearly $200 billion over the next decade.

Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...
[See post to listen to audio]

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While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hundreds dead in massive Sierra Leone mudslide triggered by torrential rains; This year's Gulf of Mexico dead zone is largest on record; 124 degrees for ten days straight in Iraq, as scientists warn 'super heat waves' to get more frequent across globe; Fossil fuel industry gets $5 trillion in subsidies per year; PLUS: It's not your imagination, Florida --- sea levels really are rising faster in the Southeast... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

More than 300 people are dead, thousands still missing and many more left homeless after mud engulfs houses near the capital, Freetown...A national emergency has been called after the city suffered heavy flooding, thought to be the worst in Africa over the past two decades...Alex Carle, director of international programmes at the British Red Cross, said the death toll is likely to rise, adding: “The spread of diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea following flooding is also a huge concern.”

Tens of thousands of Iraqis displaced by battles between government forces and Islamic State militants have endured the heat in tents and other makeshift shelters. Humanitarian organizations have been unable to reach all of them because of budget constraints, restrictions by Iraq’s government and risks associated with operating in war zones.

Temperatures in the Middle East are already soaring past 120°F, while a heat wave named "Lucifer" scorches Europe...But, new research says, we ain’t seen nothing yet. A new study by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Union’s science and research lab, finds that “if global temperatures rise with 4°C [7°F], a new super heat wave of 55°C [131°F] can hit regularly many parts of the world, including Europe” and the United States.

Not all of that is in the form of cash money. Much of it is in avoided costs — things the fossil fuel crowd are responsible for but are excused from paying for. They include “not only supply costs but also environmental costs like global warming and deaths from air pollution and taxes applied to consumer goods in general.” The authors argue that this broader view of subsidies is the correct view because they “reflect the gap between consumer prices and economically efficient prices.” They do not include such incidentals as the US military...

Farmers use those nutrients on fields as fertilizer. Rain washes them into nearby streams and rivers. And when they reach the Gulf of Mexico, those nutrients unleash blooms of algae, which then die and decompose. That is what uses up the oxygen in a thick layer of water at the bottom of the Gulf, in a band that follows the coastline..."Fish that can swim will move out of the way. Organisms that are living on the bottom, that the fish feed on, can't move, and they often die," Scavia says.

The United States contributes over 80 percent of Lake Erie’s total phosphorus load. In sum, major load reductions will have to come from agriculture, mostly from U.S. farms...But in the Mississippi River basin this [voountary] approach has failed. In spite of more than 30 years of research and monitoring, over 15 years of assessments and goal-setting, and over US$30 billion in federal conservation funding since 1995, average nitrogen levels in the Mississippi have not declined since the 1980s.

For people in the southeastern United States, and especially in Florida, who feel that annoying tidal flooding has sneaked up on them in recent years, it turns out to be true. And scientists have a new explanation. In a paper published online Wednesday, University of Florida researchers calculated that from 2011 to 2015, the sea level along the American coastline south of Cape Hatteras rose six times faster than the long-term rate of global increase.

A combination of natural factors has driven the rise, but climate change has exacerbated the problem...“Things can really change in five years, and when you look at the projections, you don’t really get that sense,” she said. “I think the projections give you a false sense of security because you say, ‘OK, we’re not going to get to this level until the year 2060 or whatever.’ But in reality, it can happen much faster.”

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

One of the coldest places on Earth is so hot it’s melting. Glaciers, sea ice and a massive ice sheet in the Arctic are thawing from toasty air above and warm water below. The northern polar region is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet and that’s setting off alarm bells...“The melting of the Arctic will come to haunt us all,” said German climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf.

Eastern larch beetles, tiny burrowing bugs native to Minnesota, are exploding in number across the state’s northern forest and have killed or damaged about a third of the state’s tamarack trees — one of the first clear signs of a rapidly changing climate.

Companies are hunting for lithium near Moab, Utah." "White Oil, Oro Blanco, Extraterrestrial Gold: lithium, the lightweight element key to rechargeable batteries, has recently acquired a slew of hyperbolic nicknames. As the demand for electric cars, laptops and smartphones has surged, the search is on for more domestic sources of this energy-critical element.

Exxon Mobil Is Still Pumping Toxins into Black Community in Texas 17 Years After Civil Rights Complaint...A block and a half from Gaines’s house, the street ends in an Exxon Mobil refinery that processes “sour crude,” oil that contains high amounts of sulfur. The process of removing the impurities and refining the oil into gasoline produces sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and other gases that can cause respiratory, neurological, cardiac, and other serious health problems. Those gasses also give the neighborhood a rotten egg odor that occasionally wafted in with the warm breeze as Gaines and I sat on his porch.

The Trump administration has collected 60 percent less from civil penalties for environmental wrongdoing than the administrations of presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did on average in their first six months in office.

The US government’s withdrawal from dealing with, or even acknowledging, climate change may have provoked widespread opprobrium, but for Alaskan communities at risk of toppling into the sea, the risks are rather more personal.

When career employees of the Environmental Protection Agency are summoned to a meeting with the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, at agency headquarters, they no longer can count on easy access to the floor where his office is, according to interviews with employees of the fedeal agency.

The U.S. and Mexican governments may be sharply at odds on President Donald Trump's plan for a border wall, but when it comes to water – and the potential for a major shortage along the Colorado River – the two sides seem to be on the same page.

City failing to draw new tech ventures for a world shifting from fossil fuels...For all its dominance in oil and gas, and all the brain power devoted to getting more from out of the ground and under the sea, Houston has very few young companies incubating new technologies and very few large ones that conduct clean energy research here..."Why would entrepreneurs come to Houston, when they could move to San Francisco, where it's easier to raise money?" Coburn asks.

The material, created by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, consists of carefully structured molecules designed to be particularly electrochemically stable in order to prevent the battery from losing energy to unwanted reactions. The results of the experiment, some of the best ever recorded for batteries of this type, are published today in Advanced Energy Materials. In this type of battery, called nonaqueous redox flow, energy is stored in negatively and positively charged solutions inside large tanks.

The family of the newest Republican governor – billionaire Jim Justice of West Virginia is going after the personal assets of two top Kentucky environmental regulators after Kentucky sought to collect millions in unpaid fines from the coal-mining companies they control.

Environmental group the Sierra Club sued the U.S. Energy Department on Monday in hopes of forcing it to reveal the groups it has consulted in conducting an eagerly awaited study on the electricity grid.

The interim chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission endorsed enhanced compensation for coal generators and said the resource should remain part of the U.S. power mix in an appearance on the agency's podcast.

"There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate," says the report, citing thousands of peer-reviewed studies. "Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans"...[T]he draft federal report sends the overriding message that failing to curb carbon pollution now will exacerbate negative consequences in the future. That assessment calls into question the wisdom of Trump's environmental and energy policies..."

Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.

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http://bradblog.com/?feed=rss2&p=12256Making America Hate Again: From Charlottesville to Oklahoma to the White House and Back Again: 'BradCast' 8/14/2017http://bradblog.com/?p=12255
http://bradblog.com/?p=12255#commentsTue, 15 Aug 2017 01:33:08 +0000Brad FriedmanBRAD BLOG Media AppearanceWar On TerrorVirginiaNorth KoreaAccountabilityFBIBarack ObamaKentuckyDemocratsRepublicansChuck GrassleyKPFKDonald TrumpDHSOklahomaMarco RubioChinaBradCastOrrin HatchTerry McAuliffeJames Mattishttp://bradblog.com/?p=12255On today's BradCast, the disturbing and tragic weekend events in Charlottesville, how they came about, the failure by Donald Trump to single out white nationalism in their wake, and what some former domestic extremists are trying to do about it all. And, the world remains on edge of war as the Trump Administration continues its aggressive threats in response to North Korea's. [Audio link to show follows below.]

With the weekend's tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the leaders of North Korea and the United States are still promising annihilation at one another and, as discussed today, should the U.S. shoot first, China has a longstanding treaty obligation to side with its ally North Korea. So, yes, we remain on the brink of what could quickly become another World War under the deft leadership of President Donald Trump today.

Also today, an alleged anti-government militant in Oklahoma attempted to set off what he believed was a 1,000 pound bomb at a Federal Reserve bank, in the fashion of Timothy McVeigh's 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, according to the FBI. The domestic terrorist was charged over the weekend.

And, speaking of aggrieved white men, we get caught up with the White Supremacist march which led to violence and death on Saturday in Charlottesville, Trump's refusal to declare any of it a terrorist incident or single out the armed and dangerous white nationalist neo-Nazi groups, as well as the condemnation of both him and Rightwing hate groups by other officials, including top Republicans. All of that before Trump's "mulligan" remarks today in which he finally condemned the hate movement by name...sort of.

Then, for insight and perspective on all of this, we're joined by TONY MCALEER, co-founder and board chair at LifeAfterHate.org, a non-profit group formed by former members of violent American far-right extremist movements, with the goal of "countering the seeds of hate" they once planted. Life After Hate was promised federal grant funding by the Obama Administration, as part of their anti-extremist efforts targeting both domestic extremism and Islamic terror. But, funding for the domestic Rightwing extremist groups was pulled by the Trump Administration's DHS in June, despite the mountain of evidence revealing that such homegrown terrorists pose a greater immediate threat to Americans.

McAleer, a former skinhead and organizer for the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), explains what the rather well-to-do white nationalists parading in Charlottesville --- and those in the White House and elsewhere who seem to support them --- are actually angry about (it doesn't have much to do with Confederate statues), and why it is that their message is so appealing to some.

"The removal of the statues, I think, is deemed as a battle line that has been drawn, and their perceived threat of political correctness," McAleer tells me. "I think they perceive it as erasing white history. The memory of the Confederacy is being erased. I think that's a philosophical and political battle line that they've drawn. [But,] I think most of the people that were there [in Charlotte] aren't even from the South, so it doesn't make sense from that perspective."

"Their message doesn't thrive unless people are in a place of pain, looking for someone to blame," he explains. "When things aren't going so well, they start looking for someone to blame. And you've got a large group of people looking for answers, and then you've got demagogues stepping forward and offering simplistic solutions and answers that aren't correct and people are buying into them."

McAleer goes on to discuss his own journey into the dark world of neo-Nazism and how he was eventually able to both pull out of it and co-found his organization to help others do the same.

"I actually believe the level to which we're willing to dehumanize another human being is a reflection of how internally disconnected and dehumanized we are within ourselves. Who joins extremist groups?," he asks rhetorically, citing research on terrorism and its causes. "The number one correlated factor in the history of somebody joining a violent extremist group is childhood trauma. Because nobody comes into the world a neo-Nazi."

Finally today, Trump had no problem quickly condemning, by name, an African-America CEO today, after his withdrawal from the President's Manufacturing Council in response to Trump's failure to condemn the racists groups on Saturday. And then, today's show wraps up where it began, with more breaking news on still more dangerous saber-rattling between the US and North Korea...

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President Trump continued to increase his threatening rhetoric against North Korea (and to play the victim himself, as is his wont) on Friday, even as experts on the region see little new in the North's own bluster and saber-rattling. Instead, they worry that the Trump Administration's own unpredictable rhetoric and instability could lead to a misunderstanding or miscommunication that could, itself, result in military action by either side, the results of which could be catastrophic.

Still, there remain diplomatic ways out, via Russia and China, from the seemingly deadly collision course, so long as those options are not closed off by Trump. There are even direct, ongoing back-channel communications between representatives of both the US and NK, as reported on our previous show and confirmed today by the Associated Press.

Then, on the heels of the recently failed Republican attempt in Congress to repeal and/or replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA or 'ObamaCare'), new polling finds the public strongly prefers that Congress and the President move on to other issues, shore up funding for the ObamaCare exchanges where needed, and will otherwise hold both Republicans and the Administration responsible for further problems with U.S. health care coverage.

Nonetheless, the Trump Administration continues to take deliberate measures to undermine the landmark federal health care law, even as those actions have resulted in double-digit increases in premiums rates for 2018 across the country --- including for non-ObamaCare customers --- according to insurers. To date, the Administration has sabotaged the ACA by cutting the length of the open enrollment period in half, has cancelled advertising to let the public know about it, has used those resources instead on propaganda to attack the federal law, has ended some $20 million in contracts for in-person sign-up assistance in 18 under-served cities, and has threatened to end Cost-Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments to insurers for low-income individuals which, according to my guest today, could "send the market into a tailspin" if the President makes good on those threats.

Today, we are joined by Congressional reporter ALICE OLLSTEINof Talking Points Memo to discuss her new exclusive revealing yet another way in which the Administration appears to be radically undermining the continuing success of the ACA, this time in the vastly under-served Latino community.

In this case, Ollstein explains, "It's more about what they are not doing." She explains that, at this time last year, and in previous years in advance of the annual open enrollment period beginning in November, hundreds of health care advocacy groups "were really revving up with tons of outside groups, and corporations, and religious organizations, health organizations, to get the word out and work with the government to promote information about open enrollment."

This year, however, after speaking with dozens of such groups, she says "every single one said" they have heard nothing from the government. "And I found a very stark pattern, particularly with the groups that focused on Latino enrollment," she tells me. "Latinos have the highest rate of un-insurance out of any racial demographic. They also disproportionately live in states like Texas and Florida that did not expand Medicaid. Those partnerships for outreach, leading up to open enrollment, are so far not happening this year."

The results, she reports, could be disastrous not only for the Latino Community, but for the health care market itself around the country. We also discuss what Trump and both Congressional RepublicansandDemocrats are considering for their various next steps regarding federal health care law.

[Update 8/14/2017: Ollstein follows up her exclusive with another, finding that it's not only Latino groups which had previously partnered with the government, but are now being ignored by the White House in the lead up to the open enrollment period.]

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report before late-breaking news on Trump's announcement that he is now also considering military action against Venezuela...

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Donald Trump re-upped and doubled-down on his recent threats to bring "fire and fury like the world has never seen before" against North Korea, telling reporters at his golf club in New Jersey on Thursday that "maybe that statement wasn't tough enough."

His original threat earlier this week was in response to North Korea's threats against the U.S., after the United Nation's security council voted unanimously for new sanctions against the isolated nation. And, in response, North Korea's military offered an unusually detailed plan to fire a salvo of missiles at Guam, a U.S. territory and home to several U.S. military bases.

We're joined to discuss the still-increasing tensions between the two nuclear powers by VOA's White House Bureau ChiefSTEVE HERMAN, who returned to report stateside earlier this year after serving as a correspondent and bureau chief in east Asia for more than 25 years.

When he last joined us in April, during the last round of threats between NK and the U.S., the always-remarkably level-headed Herman offered a tip, as a veteran journalist in the region, as to how to assess whether or not NK was bluffing with their public statements. We find out whether the new round of threats from NK's military is now finally cause for legitimate concern, and whether Trump's own bellicose threats --- and the potential for a preemptive U.S. strike --- pose an even greater threat to stability in the region.

Herman also offers some criticism of the U.S. commercial broadcast coverage on this issue, details the divides over the matter within the Trump Administration itself, discusses what North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may actually be seeking here, how big the stakes are for all sides in "this ultimate poker game", and confirms that, despite the increasingly heated rhetoric from both sides, back-channel diplomacy is still ongoing and may ultimately help to avoid what otherwise appears to be a deadly collision course.

He also offers a thought or two on which has been more difficult to cover, the whole of East Asia during his time overseas, or the Trump Administration now that he's reporting from the White House.

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While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!